The present invention relates to storage media containing musical score displaying data, musical score display apparatus for visually displaying a musical score using the musical score displaying data, and computer programs for displaying a musical score. More particularly, the present invention relates to a storage medium containing musical score displaying data that are arranged to display notes of a performance part across a plurality of musical staff or stave rows in accordance with attribute information that is included in the musical score displaying data for designating each stave to be displayed, and a musical score displaying apparatus and a musical score displaying program using the musical score displaying data to visually display a musical score. The present invention also relates to a storage medium containing musical score displaying data that are arranged to display musical score symbols and marks while appropriately controlling display positions of the symbols and marks in accordance with attribute information that is included in the musical score displaying data for designating horizontal or vertical display positions, and a musical score displaying apparatus and a musical score displaying program using the musical score displaying data to display a musical score.
There have been known apparatus and computer programs for displaying a musical score on the basis of automatic performance data (e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. HEI-11-327427). These musical score display apparatus and computer programs electronically display a musical score on a display device, such as one including a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel or cathode ray tube (CRT). In general, the automatic performance data are formatted to include data designating pitches of tones to be generated etc. along with timing data of tone generating and tone deadening events. Each of the timing data is information indicative of a time point when an event is to be generated, a time interval between successive events, or the like. In electronically displaying a musical score on a display screen on the basis of such automatic performance data, the automatic performance data are analyzed so that specific kinds of notes and rests are determined in accordance with tone generating time lengths (tone duration) and time intervals between successive tone generation timing. Further, various notes, rests, musical symbols and marks, etc. are displayed on a musical score by determining vertical display positions of the notes in accordance with tone pitches and horizontal display positions of the notes in accordance with note lengths.
Generally, in cases where a music piece comprising a plurality of performance parts is to be written on a musical score, there is employed a musical score made up of a plurality of stave rows. For example, a musical score for a piano is made up of two stave rows: one for a bass part (left-hand performance part) represented by the “F (bass) clef”; and one for a treble part (right-hand performance part) represented by the “G (treble) clef”. Notes constituting the individual performance parts are written sequentially on these staves. In the conventionally-known apparatus, automatic performance data, not including or not associated with musical score displaying data indicative of particular display positions of individual musical score symbols, are analyzed on the basis of a preset tone pitch, and notes are each allocated to and displayed on any one of the treble and bass staves in accordance with the analyzed results. However, where notes of the left-hand performance part are to be displayed on the treble stave and notes of the right-hand performance part are to be displayed on the bass stave, the conventionally-known apparatus displays the notes on the respective staves, in a so-called marshaling fashion, merely on the basis of the automatic performance data analysis based on the preset pitch, i.e. without regard to on which of the treble and bass staves the notes should be actually displayed. Namely, the conventionally-known musical score displaying apparatus are not designed to display an inseparable group of notes of a performance part, which includes a note allocated to the treble stave and a note allocated to the bass stave, across the treble and bass staves; that is, the conventionally-known apparatus are designed to display such a inseparable group of notes on just one of the treble and bass staves. For the reason, it would be very difficult for a user to view the displayed musical score and accurately recognize connections between successive notes of the performance part. The inconveniences may be avoided by displaying the notes of the performance part across a plurality of stave rows on the basis of predetermined conditions; however, such an approach would be difficult to execute, because the musical score display tends to be uniform at every portion thereof if the conditions are fixed and thus the approach requires complicated conditions.
Further, the conventionally-known musical score displaying techniques would present the problem that they can not readily control display positions of musical score symbols and marks because they display a musical score on the basis of automatic performance data. Because the techniques are arranged to display the symbol of each note on the basis of note event data included in the automatic performance data, a display position of the note symbol is determined in accordance with a tone pitch and timing of the note, so that the note symbol is displayed at the determined display position. For other musical score symbols than note symbols, their display positions are preset uniformly in each of the apparatus; thus, the other musical score symbols are displayed at their respective preset display positions. Therefore, in cases where a great many note symbols and other musical score symbols are to be displayed in a small area on a display screen, a plurality of the musical score symbols would be displayed undesirably in an overlapping manner. However, with the conventionally-known musical score displaying techniques, where the display of musical score symbols is limited to the display positions determined by the automatic performance data and preset display positions and hence can not be controlled as desired, a musical score very difficult for the user to view would be displayed as it is. As one possible approach to avoid such an inconvenience, there may stored, in memory, display positions, in both horizontal and vertical directions, of musical score symbols so that the musical score symbols can be displayed freely at any appropriate positions. In such a case, however, the display positions of the musical score symbols to be stored in memory are absolute coordinates based on a given point on the display device, and therefore, for adaptation to display devices of various different sizes and shapes, they have to be rewritten in conformity with the individual display devices. Thus rewriting the display positions tends to be very cumbersome.